Contextualizing Muslim Religious-Only Marriages

Abstract

This special issue focuses on Muslim religious-only marriages, which are marriages not recognized by state authorities but which at least one of the parties involved considers religiously valid. The practice of informal religious marriages has manifested in different parts of the world, and such marriages have become a topic of debate and intervention. In a tripartite dynamic, state authorities are involved in attempts to regulate or criminalize religious-only marriages, religious actors play a variety of roles, and the couples involved are left to navigate an increasingly controversial field. This special issue explores these issues in detail by investigating the interactions among state authorities, religious actors, and the couples themselves, and the motivations of each in their engagement with the others.The contributions to this special issue were, with one exception, presented at the two-day symposium Unregistered Muslim Marriages-Regulations and Contestations. This symposium was organized by Rajnaara Akhtar and Annelies Moors and held in April 2017 at the De Montfort University in Leicester, in conjunction with the University of Amsterdam.1 All of the papers are based on well-grounded empirical research. The authors employ a variety of methods, from participant observation, informal conversations, and semistructured interviews to discourse analysis of texts and images and social media use. They have worked with different interlocutors, including state actors, religious authorities of various standing and persuasions, ngos, and ordinary Muslims involved in these marriages. Research has been conducted both in Muslim-majority settings (Malaysia, Tunisia, and Jordan) as well as in countries where Muslims are a religious minority (Norway, England, and the Netherlands), in states that have developed a diverse range of policies on Muslim religious-only marriages, and with Muslim constituencies that differ both in terms of ethnic and national backgrounds and with respect to the nature of their religious commitment.

Muslim Marriage and Non-Marriage

“…Youth across the Arab region engage in alternative relationship practices despite legal restrictions and social taboos El Feki 2015;Al-Ali, Ali, and Marler 2016;Moors, Akthar, and Probert 2018).…”

Displacement, humanitarian interventions and gender rights in the Middle East: Syrian refugees in Jordan as a case study

“…A similar practice has been observed in Morocco and referred to as Fatiha-marriages (see Mir Hosseini 2000). On Muslim marriages more generally (see Akhtar 2018Akhtar, Nash and Probert 2020;Moors 2013;Moors, Akhtar, and Probyn 2018;Sonneveld 2011;VanEijk 2013). 3.…”

Foreign to Palestinian Society? ʿUrfī Marriage, Moral Dangers, and the Colonial Present

“…However, in the course of the first decade of the twenty-first century, the meaning of ʿurfī marriages shifted to 'secret marriages' -that is, the kind of unregistered marriages that are not only unknown to state authorities but also were kept hidden from family and society. Also elsewhere, in particular those marriages that were kept hidden from the family were strongly condemned (Moors, Akhtar, and Probert 2018).…”

“…As pointed out, both by officials in the shariʿa court in Nablus and by the mufti of Nablus. 5 See for this general trendMoors (2013) andMoors, Akhtar, and Probert (2018).Downloaded from Brill.com12/28/2020 01:33:16AM via free access…”